Tainted Blood
by Herex
Summary: This is a story of an addict and a victim. Once reality and fantasy blur together, is there any hope of separating them again? And when fantasy is better than reality, is there any reason to try? The answer isn't clear. (Drug fic.)-(Takes place in an AU, a more realistic version of Remnant.)-(T because drug use, albeit fictional drug use.)
1. Ritz and Rubble

Just one more…

One more hit. Please.

I can pay, I can…

Please, someone…

* * *

Small dirty droplets of water fell to the broken stone pavement, running from a cracked drain pipe above her head. Darkness crept across the ground, becoming animated as the sun set above the high alley walls. Time seemed to slow to a crawl at night, and the city seemed to come into itself. Painfully quiet, but at the same time frighteningly loud. Every noise was a threat, every voice was a cry, to her.

She shivered, and pulled the dirty cover closer around her frail body as the night dragged on. Her skin was deathly pale, purple and black bruises covered her arms and legs like the graffiti on the wall she was lying against. She felt it coming, that horrible sickness that festered in the pit of her stomach, a systematic parasite that screamed at her mind to feed it as it tried to rip itself from her skin, relentlessly itching and ripping at her subconscious. She knew these symptoms too well, and usually she would have enough dust left to fend off the withdrawals. But this week had been poor pickings, and a twitch in her right hand had been the one thing keeping her from her precious dust.

Making money as a pickpocket and a petty thief was fine. In her mind she was using it for something better than what her targets were going to use it for. That's all it was to her. Justification. A seemingly higher purpose. People looked down on her for what she did, but they didn't know. They couldn't know.

As soon as the mixture entered her everything became clear, and nothing mattered. She was embraced by the feeling, sweet and delicate, running through her veins. It beat any other kick you could get. Once upon a time, she believed fighting for a cause greater than herself was the ultimate thrill, the rush of going toe to toe with the man for some unknown cause with little to no chance of success.

But nothing beat dust. Nothing in the world.

A pang in her stomach ripped her drug addled mind from it's bitter sweet reverie and reminded her of the night ahead. Soon she would feel it all over her body. She began to feel a burning frost in her fingers, like dipping them in frozen water. She blew hot breath into them and winced as her body reacted with a fire unlike anything she'd ever felt. Tears welled up in her eyes as she dreaded what was to come, hell on earth. It was different this time though...Too fast, too soon. The thumping sounds of a nearby nightclub shook the ground below her as her already heightened hearing tripled. Her weary eyelids drifted together, completely against her will as her body began to shut down.

Even though her whole body was exhausted, sleep was merely a far off idea in her mind, a brief loving moment of death where she could live out this nightmare in relative ease. But that was too good for someone like her.

There was a bang, and then a door shutting. The sound of two people, awkward shuffling and giggles as she sank further down the wall. She wanted to open her eyes, see who it was and hide, run away so they couldn't see her but her eyes felt like they'd been sewn shut. The two people were talking quietly. Girls. They hadn't even noticed the thin girl in the darkest corner of the alley.

"..It's freezing. Hurry up and call him already." one voice said in a hushed, authoritative tone and the other was silent for a moment before sighing.

"He isn't answering." the other voice muttered, and more shuffling echoed through the alley as the second girl took her jacket off and draped it around the other, much thinner girls shoulders.

"Better now Princess?"

Silence.

"Wei-"

"Yes, it's better. And don't call me Princess." the first voice snapped and the other laughed in response.

"Why not? It's cute."

"Well...Hmph. Are you calling him again or not?

"Yeah yeah, give me a minute…"

Silence.

The dripping of the pipe above became louder as the girl's body sank to the floor. A light rain began, drops of water falling from the heavens onto the girl's face. She let out a noise, a final desperate whine as the rain became heavier and soaked straight through her flimsy clothes.

"What was that?" she heard the voices ask, as an empty darkness clouded her mind.

"An animal?"

The inky blankness took the girl and she collapsed onto the wet cobble.

The second girl approached cautiously.

"It's a person…" the first girl whispered from behind.

"Are you okay?" the voice was soft, caring.

The moon peeked over the top of the buildings and cast a low light in the alley.

"It's a faunus…" the soft voice said.

"She's an addict…Disgusting."

"Weiss!"

""Look at her! Leave her be Yang, don't touch her. She's out here for a reason."

The girl with the soft voice came forward, kneeling down by the girl's body.

"Yang!"

"She's sick! We have to help her."

She scooped the girl's body up in both arms and carried her back to the other girl.

"Look at her! She's probably already dead! What can we do about it?" her voice was tinged with ice and anxiousness.

The other girl just stayed silent and carried the body out into the street, flagging down a taxi as it passed in the night. The driver opened the door and helped her put the body in the back as the other girl stormed around, outraged at the turn the night had taken.

Yang, the girl with the soft voice, flared up with her own anger at the other girl's reaction. Frankly she couldn't believe that Weiss could be like this.

"Weiss, get in the car or I'm leaving without you."

Weiss looked as if she'd just been punched in the stomach. Mouth agape, she just shook her head and walked around to the front of the car and got in, slamming the door. Yang sighed and got in the back with the girl, telling the driver to head to the nearest clinic.

She lifted the poor girl's head and lay it on her lap, picking the greasy black hair out of her face as Weiss glared at her in the mirror. Yang didn't notice, just stared down at the girl. She had a lovely, shapely face and thin cheeks. Bringing a hand to her cheek, she cupped it and wiped away a bit of dirt.

There was something about this girl, Yang thought. She smiled, eyes focused on the girls closed eyes.

Weiss dropped her gaze when she saw this. This wasn't how this night was supposed to end. No first date ends this way. She sniffed, rubbed her nose and looked out the window at the broken moon high in the sky and wished she could be anywhere else but there.

* * *

 _Just try it. It's amazing._

 _I don't know…_

 _C'mon Blake, don't be like that. You said you wanted to forget, right?_

…

 _Blake!_

Blake cried out at the dream, the foggy memories of the past reaching out to her. She jumped and fell to the floor, a tangle of sweat covered bedding following her as she fought against her body to start breathing normally again. Where was she?

Her head buzzed with a dull pain as she struggled to remember what had happened. She couldn't remember anything. Her body was aching horribly, and she was covered in a thin film of cold sweat. The room was bright, and a harsh stream of sunlight flowed in through the single window in the room. Looking down at herself, she was dressed in soft white pyjama bottoms and a black top. Someone had changed her out of her old clothes.

She looked around as she got to her feet, untangling herself from the duvet. It was painted a bright yellow, and several pictures hung on the wall furthest from her, next to the door. A large dresser sat next to the door, and a wardrobe faced the window, next to another door that lead, presumably, to a bathroom. She walked across to the dresser and looked at the many picture frames that sat upon it. A blonde haired girl was present in all of them, a large confident grin adorning her features. Blake picked one up, a perfect photo of the girl and a younger looking girl with red hair. They both looked so happy together.

Blake struggled to remember a time when she was that happy without dust flowing through her. A long time ago…

From the next room Blake heard a door open and close again and she quickly placed the picture back on the dresser. Backing away from the dresser, she watched the door as the rustling of paper bags and whistling came from under the door.

Blake stood rigid in the middle of the room. She was out of place here, and the sickness would come again soon. Whoever it was that had helped her… They didn't need a drug addict hanging around. The door opened before she could even think about leaving. Yang entered with a towel and a some fresh clothes, but stopped when she saw Blake.

"Oh. Hey. You're awake. That's good." she said casually, placing the towel on the dresser.

She was wearing a long flowing sun dress and Blake felt her breath empty itself from her lungs. Yang's thick naturally blonde mane shun in the light, the straps of the dress disappearing under the locks.

"The doctor said you'd be out for at least a day so I thought I'd get some food in." she continued as Blake naturally took a few steps back.

The blonde smiled and stepped towards her, offering her the clothes.

"I'm Yang. Do you...know what happened? Can you remember?"

Blake shook her head, still cautious about the girl. She'd been hurt too many times to trust people. Everyone had a quota, or an agenda, something to stick to. Right now, this girl was no different.

Seeing that Blake wasn't going to take the clothes, Yang instead put them on top of the dresser with the towel.

"I'll take that as a no. We found you, in an alley beside the...In an alley. You passed out from exhaustion. And you called out to us."

"Us?" Blake asked.

"Weiss and I. She's a friend."

Blake looked at her bare feet and the wooden floorboards beneath them. There was something about the way the girl talked. It was fuller, somehow. Something that had been absent in the voices of the people she talked to.

"Do you have a name? Something I can call you?" Yang said, breaking the silence.

In any other occasion she would've said no, or made up a fake name, but she owed her this much at least.

"Blake."

Yang smiled widely and took the towel again, handing it to her. Blake took it without thinking.

"Shower's through there." Yang nodded to the door next to the cupboard.

"Take your time. You've been through a lot, Blake."

And with that Yang left again, closing the bedroom door behind her and leaving Blake standing with the towel held against her chest. She turned to look out of the window, and the sun pouring in through it.

She smiled to herself.

 _Yang…_

* * *

The shower was connected to a preheated tank, so the water was already hot when Blake stepped into the small glass cubicle. Blake let out a long pleasurable sigh as she felt the steaming water cascade over her body. She watched the dirt and blood circle the drain from the multiple cuts and bruises that decorated her body. It had been almost two weeks since her last shower, and even then it was a cold one in the corner of a dust den with no curtain or towels.

She began to wash, using Yang's shower gel and shampoo sparingly. Using a sponge, she softly washed her body. Every bruise was a landmine, and every cut was a mousetrap. She hated how she looked. Ugly bruises all over her body from living on the streets. There was nowhere to go and Blake would almost always wake up with a wound she hadn't had the night before.

 _They're reminders of what you are._

A sharp dagger cut through her mind at the thought and she doubled over, her body having a sudden and jarring reaction. The sickness had come back with a vengeance. The soapy water ran down from her hair and blurred her vision as she lowered herself to her knees.

This is what happens to addicts, she thought. You do it, you regret it, you do it again. You know you will. And you want to stop, so badly, but you can't. Because it isn't you anymore. It's someone else. A demon, controlled by substance and powered by senseless want.

She could see it, thick black sludge crawling through her blood, in her veins, poisoning her.

She loved it. She hated it. She wanted it gone. She never wanted to let it go.

A loud ringing in her ears made her shiver as she struggled to fight the onslaught of withdrawal that surged through her body.

"Blake? Are you okay?" Yang's voice was like a light in the darkness of Blake's mind.

"Blake…?"

But it was fading.

 _Blake!_

And then she was back there, in that horrible place. With the others, the addicts. She was so cold, and the needle was a cool warmth. It was liberation from this feeling.

 _You wanted this, right? To forget?_

It pierced a hole. The world spun, curving and twisting and breaking as she fell to the floor in ecstasy. Her eyes closed and colours burst into life behind her eyelids, crashing against reality in explosions of blinding light.

Sinking...sinking into the floor, into the earth once again. Finally, she could feel it...She'd missed it.

 _This isn't you, Blake._

Dreams of desert suns that hugged the dead and ships sinking in typhoons of glass.

 _You have to wake up. Please wake up._

A small girl in the rain, lost and sad and alone. Who was she?

 _Blake, please! Please!_

A man dressed in black, leading the girl away, into the darkness.

 _Blake…_

* * *

 **Thank you for reading this far! I hope you enjoyed this little slice of darkness. Drugs aren't fun. They mess with you in ways you can't even understand. Don't do them.**

 **Tell me if I should keep going, cause I enjoyed making this. Thanks!**


	2. Alma Alta

Where are you going Blake?

Why are you doing this?

It makes no sense.

How could you think this was a good idea?

* * *

The lights in the clinic were horrible. Artificial bulbs ran down every corridor uninterrupted, giving the whole place a clean, fake look. It was like they needed to banish any semblance of darkness from the building, or cover up something worse. It wasn't hard to imagine someone waking up in a place like this and thinking they'd died and gone to heaven.

Yang could think up as many terrible things as she wanted about this place, but the fact remained that this was the best place for Blake to be. She was sick, and she needed help. Help that Yang couldn't give her. Dreadful thoughts hung above her head like a dark cloud.

It was easy to predict the worse thing in a hopeless situation. But Yang had hope. It was something she'd prided herself on throughout her life. When things looked bleak, she always tried to light a candle, to brighten the mood and bring back hope. Sometimes a positive thought was all you needed to get back on track and go about solving a problem.

But then again, most problems weren't a long running drug abuse problem. And that was what Blake had. And Yang was struggling to find a light.

Now she was slumped in an uncomfortable chair outside of the room Blake was being kept in, waiting for a change. What Weiss had said kept echoing in her head and Yang hated to admit it, but she was starting to come round to the same grim train of thought. Finding Blake passed out in the shower didn't exactly bring a lot of bright thoughts to mind.

She'd heard enough about dust addiction from late night TV documentaries, the ones where they would bring on some bugged eyed, pale faced former user and interview them. What was it one of them had said?

 _The addiction doesn't seem like a problem when you first try it. In fact it repels you and you think, why would I do that? That's horrible. But it isn't the feeling that brings you back. It's the urge, the itch, the thirst, to use. Quenching that thirst is the best feeling in the world._

To Yang though, taking dust seemed so beyond her, it was almost as if the idea of being addicted didn't exist in her world. It was like bird watching, or penny collecting, and the people who enjoy that. To any other person, that sounds like the worst thing in the world. But to them, you just can't get enough.

"Yang?" a voice said, and Yang jumped.

She'd been so deep in her thoughts she hadn't noticed the Doctor in the pristine white lab coat drift in front of her. She looked up at the doctor and frowned when she saw a friendly face.

"Pyrrha?"

The redhead smiled, her emerald eyes gleaming behind her glasses as Yang stood up to hug her friend. The last time the two had seen each other was almost a year and a half ago. She'd looked so young and fresh faced then.

"I thought you were still in Atlas?"

Pyrrha shook her head. Yang noted creases on her face. Despite them being the same age, Yang couldn't help but feel young in comparison.

"I arrived back a few weeks ago. I was only there for my residency." she smiled, and Yang took a step back as Pyrrha took a clipboard out from under her arm.

"I'm here to see a patient...Blake." Pyrrha raised her eyebrows as she noticed a lack of a maiden name.

"I didn't know her second name." she admitted awkwardly, and Pyrrha looked surprised.

"You brought her here? Is she a friend?"

Yang realised this must seem awfully strange, having brought in a dust addict and all. She sighed.

"I… found her. In an alley. She'd collapsed and I…"

"You took her home." Pyrrha nodded, adjusting her spectacles.

Yang nodded silently and Pyrrha let out a small chuckle. Reckless as always, it seemed.

"You know why she collapsed, I assume?" Pyrrha asked, becoming far more serious and continuing before Yang could answer.

"Dust addiction is serious, Yang. This stuff...It's poison to humans, worse for Faunus. And from the initial blood diagnostic, it's clear she's been using for at least a few years. Maybe longer."

Yang dropped her gaze momentarily, but inhaled deeply and smiled.

"I know. But we can get her off of it." she announced, standing up straighter.

Pyrrha didn't look as sure.

"We need to get the permission of the patient before we can start a medically observed rehabilitation course. And someone who has been using this long are never really fond of giving it up." she reminded Yang, who didn't falter.

She was determined to find a light in the dark, and Pyrrha knew it. She'd seen this face before. Back then.

"We'll get her to come around. I know we will."

Pyrrha knew better than to fight Yang once her mind was made up on something. She nodded and moved to the door, but stopped as she pushed the door handle down. A thought occurred and she turned to Yang.

"You found this girl in an alley. Why are you so determined to help her?"

Yang's smile dipped a little as she herself wondered why. This girl was a stranger, and they'd shared only a few words. But for some reason, Yang felt a deep seated need to do something.

"I...I can't explain it. It's like, you see someone and you just know you'd do anything for them. You know what that's like?"

Pyrrha smiled and nodded.

"Yes I do."

And they went in.

* * *

Everything was black. Tiny white worms snaked their way across her vision. The world seemed to shift around her. Voices echoed from in the distance, nothing more than whispers.

 _It's a person…_

She was in Yang's yellow room again. The door was missing, replaced by a blank rectangle of white.

 _A faunus…_

The window was there though, and the sunlight poured in through it. It was pure, bright and inviting. She could feel the warmth on her skin. Her hand reached out and tried to grasp the light.

 _She's an addict…Disgusting._

The sun burnt her skin and she recoiled, letting out a silent scream as the spot where her hand had once been began to turn black, growing and taking over the stream of sun. It clambered up the light like vines on a wall, slowly turning it to darkness. The tendrils twisted around the light and swallowed it whole. The once yellow walls began to chip and fall away like pieces of black snow. She fell into nothingness once again.

 _You wanted to forget, right?_

Two large red eyes peered at her through the darkness of the void. It ripped itself from the walls of Blake's mind, its skin falling off of it like melting plastic. A horrific, black beast now stood in front of her, curling streams of hot breath rising up past it's disfigured face. Blake was tiny and defenceless against it.

 _This is what you deserve, remember?_

The monster screamed, a horrible high pitched cry of pain and desperation. The noise drilled its way into the matter of Blake's brain and knocked her clean off her feet. It lumbered forward, thick blobs of it's skin sliding off its body. It leered over Blake, a colossus against an ant.

 _This is what happens to an addict._

It raised one horrible paw and, letting out one final screech, brought it down onto Blake.

 _You've been through a lot._

The void shook. Blake felt something. A light warmth on her skin. Like she'd been hugged by an invisible angel.

 _You called out to us._

The beast screamed out in agony, falling back. It clutched at its paw, which had been engulfed in a luteous blue flame that danced across its black flesh. Blake watched as the monster crawled back into the void, defeated, but not dead.

 _Are you okay?_

The voice filled Blake's head and she focused on it. It was a lifeline, a way out of this living nightmare. And she was going to grip it and never let go.

* * *

Yang took her hand away from Blake's arm. Blake was as still as the dead, lying flat on the crisp white bed.

"She's so cold." she said quietly.

"She's having withdrawals. Her body chemistry will be all over the place. I can't imagine what's going on in her head." Pyrrha said from the corner of the room. She was writing on the clipboard, taking notes on Blake's condition.

"Can't you give her something to help?"

Pyrrha gave a comforting smile. She needed Yang to calm down.

"We're doing all we can for her without making her overdose. We need to wait until her heart rate comes down and monitor her condition from there."

Yang didn't seem pleased, but she know there was nothing else to do. Her thoughts kept turning to what could happen if something went wrong. Pyrrha was concerned for her friend. She was acting the same way she had back then. But that wasn't the same thing.

"Yang, you can go home. We'll call you if anything happens." Pyrrha said, standing up and returning the clipboard to back under her arm.

Yang shook her head.

"If I go home I'll just worry. I'll stay here. In case she wakes up and she doesn't know where she is." she said, the desperation in her voice already showing fairly clearly.

"Yang, this isn't her-" Pyrrha began, but Yang cut her off.

"I know. I know that. But if I can help and I don't, then what point is there? Hm?" she snapped, her blonde hair falling across her eyes.

Pyrrha glanced at her watch and sighed. The rhythmic deadpan tone of the heart monitor filled the silence.

"I'll have a nurse bring round some food for the night." she said finally.

Yang said nothing, just took her place by Blake once more.

Pyrrha left her in the room, and stood out in the hall for a moment. If Yang was so determined to go down this path again, Pyrrha couldn't stop her. She could only make the road ahead clearer.

* * *

 **I'm still at the point in this story where I have things pre-written. So this is going up now, and if I decide I want to I'll post chapter 3 tomorrow.**

 **I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and the like where the story is going.**

 **Follow the story so you know when the next chapter is released. Leave a review and favourite it too if you feel like it. Cheers.**

 **PSA: Don't do drugs. They're shit.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, all credit goes to Rooster Teeth.**


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